Here We Are
by LovinCopperpot
Summary: Carden's been gone and, apparently, Dean's moved on, but when disaster strikes who will Carden turn to? Sequel to Dance with the Devil; Dean/OC
1. Chapter 1

You guys didn't actually think I'd write something foretelling about the story yet, did you? I'm still hammering out the details!

Anyway, I almost have a video up that is going to rock, so check that out, plus around the end of the week when I can get to my computer at home there will be many more going up in relation to this. 


	2. NOT THE FIRST CHAPTER

Well, my devoted readers, I've decided on when the first chapter will be up; Sunday the eighteenth. Why? Because I desperately want to see the next episode of Supernatural. Don't worry, I'm writing and sketching out the story plan and creating at LEAST one completely new creature and character for you. Hehe. 


	3. 1: So Far From Home

I am so intensely excited right now. I made a banner. There's a link on my homepage. Check it out.

Normally, I promise, there will be the tiniest bit more, but this was one of those chapters where I had reached the end of how far I felt I could go without leaving it awkwardly in the middle of the next plot twist. Sorry.

* * *

More than anything, I wanted to forget the fact that I'd left everything I wanted for so long for this life. It wasn't even a life. I knew it wouldn't be, but it's worse than I imagined. It's sucking the life from me; this life is negative life. I feel so empty and damned and alone. They even took Allan.

That miniature description of my internal being as of the last three months is nothing at all. But it's really hard to look back and say everything I want to. Need to, I guess; it's like a venom building up inside of me, and I've only let it all out once, and that ended so badly it's more painful than the venom building up was.

When Allan and I got to the train station in Philly, the school was waiting and ready for us. I figured they'd provide transportation to my newest Watcher's house, and that's what I told Allan would be happening; I promised to always take care of him. I really need to watch my mouth.

Then they forced me and him into separate cars and for a split second I thought that that was for our protection too; it wasn't. Their car drove one way, ours went another, and they never met up again. The transporters explained it all in detail to me on the car ride into a very sketchy looking neighborhood where I was supposed to be living with my watcher: Allan and I couldn't stay together because it was a risk they weren't willing to take. Allan would be staying with two slayers and I was to listen to everything Susan Pendle, my Watcher, said.

I fingered my necklace the entire car ride, feeling lost and crying and screaming at them. I knew that I wouldn't have had any contact with Allan if I'd come back under normal circumstances, but do they understand that Allan is all I have left? It's not like it would look weird for us all to be living together. And I can protect him better than any other Slayer can; they don't care about him. They have no passion, no personal stake except for their precious mission-review sheets.

And then they told me they weren't sure it was Azazel. I nearly throttled them, but they pointed out that other demons had burned down houses before. I reached for my cell phone to call Dean and beg him to come save me, because I was obviously surrounded by idiots who are almost as bad as Azazel, but they dared to throw my cell phone out the window. That's when it occurred to me that I should copy down a few numbers for my own personal safety.

When I got to the house I tore up the stairs into the first bedroom I found, sobbing outwardly. Once I found that first bedroom, which was self-proclaimed to be mine, I jotted down a few select numbers on an old receipt and shoved it into my back pocket.

That night the council burned and confiscated everything to do with my past life. My cell phone was crushed before my eyes, my driver's silence was sent to be filed off somewhere, and they came at me with three different wigs to wear whenever I left the house and enough make-up to change my racial status.

At around four am, I searched through every motel in the tri-state area. I figured since we'd gotten in fairly late then they couldn't have gotten him too far, unless they doubled back and took him on the train, but that would just be dumb of them. For reference, there are around three hundred and fifty motels, and I had to find two hundred before one would admit to having seen someone of my brother's description.

They connected me to his room, and miraculously enough it was my brother who answered. We had a mini freak-out and mourning fest before I gave him my cell phone number and told him to call me in a week on my cell phone at one in the morning so I could find out where he was and what his new phone number was.

It took three days for me to do anything but scream at anyone who tried to come in my room or talk to me through my door. I threw an absolute fit, easily defined as hysterical. There was the occasional throwing of things, but then Susan started to take them and it occurred to me that she was burning the too, so instead I just physically threw myself at her if she got too close.

After three days, it was like I collapsed. I gave in; the fight had been sucked out of e. It was the first thing gone in this life-that-literally-sucks. I didn't want to listen to them, but my spirit kind of just… left. I wore the three different wigs – one for going to school, one for going to work, and one that I have to change to in a bathroom at the train station that I use to get from school/work to home. Each wig has a different name, but no personality. I lack a personality.

It was around three weeks into the charade that I broke down just the tiniest bit. It was luckily in front of the most understanding girl in the world, who I was working on a project with in the library. Her name was Elu, a product of two very hippie parents, and when we read something in which the main character was named Dean for one of my many English classes I fell to my knees balling.

Mindful of my brother, and that saying about my life before was generally bad, I let out that I'd been in love with a man named Dean, but I'd been forced to leave him and even though I wanted to call him and talk to him I knew that he hated me. All of this was completely true. I was quite certain that Dean hated me, or at least he didn't care, and that calling him would result in me hurting more than him.

Elu nodded in slight understanding at my moaning and quietly suggested that I call him anyway. And even if the idea was slightly obnoxious and completely what I had just said didn't want to do, I called Sam that night. Sam had been put into my cell phone programmed under the fake name Linus. Dean was in there too, under Helen. Susan asked once, but I told her they were kids from school that I needed to be in contact with.

Anyway, I called Sam that night because I had a bad feeling about calling Dean and, too excited about feeling anything at all to question it, I called Sam. I can still remember the way he stuttered when he heard me say hello. He lacked any obvious idea as to what was happening, and I quickly explained that I wanted to talk to Dean.

There was another few moments of stuttering followed by a long whine from Phantom. I remember the way my heart stopped and I'm sure Sam felt my panic, "Why is Tommy still awake? It's late, he's usually asleep by now. Has he not been exercised?"

"Uh, Carrie, I'm… I'm in the car right now."

I hung up; I didn't even say bye to Sam or anything, I just hung up. I had lived with Dean and Sam long enough to know what Sam being in the car for the night meant, especially if Phantom was with him. I turned off my phone, just to be safe and make sure Sam didn't call me back. I kept their numbers, though, for sentimental purposes.

And now it's mid-November, I haven't talked to Allan since we traded numbers, and I am a brunette, redhead, and have dyed-black hair on a daily basis. I leave the house for work and school, and other than that only in extreme emergencies. Like when Susan, who is the monster bitch I figured she would be, had a stomach flu and it was either get out of the house and get her some medicine and jello or watch her puke her guts out. I would've just gone into another room and not watched, but I'm kind of indebted to the school for taking care of my brother.

As far as Allan told me, he's got two slayers in the house and essentially a body guard of magicians along with one lowly secretary who does all the cooking and shopping. Allan doesn't leave the house, or at least not without an escort. They'd probably do that with me too, only I may or may not have broken my escort's nose on the first day. And my new escort's leg on the second. I guess they figure that if I can take down their escorts, I can defend myself from muggers and the occasional over-zealous demon.

I don't know who I want more: Allan, Phantom, or Dean and Sam. I'm so lonely in Philadelphia, and occasionally I hear a news report from the nearby Bucks County and all I can think about for those next few days is Sam and Dean and the beach. It was all a dream when I remembered it, or at least it seemed like it. Had I really been in love, and then left him for this? Somewhere inside, I must have known what this life would be like. Empty.


	4. 2 Cheating Gets it Faster

I was walking home from a day of work that was, by definition, uneventful. I worked in a back-alley bar, serving cocktails and having the chance at multiple sex partners. Of course, even if the school wasn't against my having a life, I would've said no. No matter what I did, or how lonely I was, or how pissed off I was at Dean for apparently getting over me so quickly when I was mourning the loss of my entire life, I still had unnecessarily strong morals.

Anyway, I was walking home from work itching at my curly-brunette wig and generally hating everything that seemed to represent happiness that managed to surround me. My cell phone rang a generic tone that I only recognized because of its distinctly painful blandness. I reached half-heartedly towards my purse for it; I was probably ten minutes late and Susan, Mrs. Pendle, was 'just checking' on the edge of hysteria.

Of course, a glance at my cell phone told me I was wrong. It was from a contact labeled 'Elmo' – Allan. He knew only to call me during an emergency and with uninhibited panic I answered, "Hello? You there?" I didn't risk saying who it was, in case it wasn't actually Allan on the phone. I just needed to hear my brother's voice, just to be sure it was him.

The other end was full of static, an annoyance at best, but through the muffled crackling and the occasional second that the line cut I could make out Allan's panicked voice. "Car… h…. gah…. Az…"

I didn't need to hear much more than that; the 'Az' was all that was necessary. The line cut off completely at that moment and, rather than waste my time standing in the middle street like a stereotypical blonde, I ran the last five blocks to my 'house' at an unnatural sprint. "SUSAN!" I knew instinctually where my Watcher would be – the kitchen. She was always there when I was done my shift, eating a sandwich for dinner like that was what she actually wanted. "Susan," I gasped at her, the front door still hanging ajar, "All… Allan needs help."

"Carrie," Susan scolded, her body tuned in to mark every mistake I made. She scooted for the front door, leaning out carefully to make sure that no one was standing out there, listening to our important conversations. Like we ever even talked. "Now, what is it you're rambling about?" She only asked me once she had closed the door, locked three of the five locks, and sat back down to her dry turkey and pickle sandwich.

"Allan, I have a bad feeling that he needs help; I need you to call whoever is taking care of him." I had to be careful not to mention that I knew this because I'd kept his number with me at all times. That spelled out trouble more effectively than any pit-stop that might make me late.

"Nonsense, Carrie," Susan, flipped her hand at me, shoeing away my feelings with an easy flick of her wrist, "Trust that Allan is safe."

"Has anyone checked on him recently?" Like, the part five minutes recently, Suzie Q.

My Watcher wiped at her the nonexistent crumbs on her bottom life as she tried to respond and laugh at me at the same time, resulting in a lethal combination that might result in my snapping her neck, "Even if he had been checked on, I wouldn't be updated; it's too dangerous, you know that. Where did this come from?"

"I have a bad feeling," I explained, "I think Allan's in trouble; please, can you call someone and have them check on him?"

"This is complete and utter nonsense, Carrie; be sensible. What, do you have a psychic connection with your brother?" Susan laughed at that, an annoying mixture of bells and a bubbling potion. I wanted to scream at her that I had technology, the ever-elusive cell phone, but I bit my tongue as she continued to twitter at me, "Tell me when you can tell the lottery numbers, Carrie. The school is running low on donations."

My jaw dropped in unadulterated amazement as my Watcher stood with her plate, totally ignorant to my instincts. I try to tell her that something is going down, and the bitch complains about the economy. Really, feeling that the last remaining member of your family is in danger isn't that unheard of. "Aren't you going to check it out at all?"

"And nurse these silly delusions of yours? Not at all."

The plate clattered into the sink, crashing into the metal and making me jump much more than was acceptable for a Slayer. Susan raised an eyebrow at this, but I could only glare back at her. I didn't even have the heart to offer an excuse; she deserved to be apologizing to me for being officially dumber than a hunter. And hunters think they can do my job without superhuman help. _Some of them can…_

I shook my head, it wasn't the time to think about Dean. I had to decide what to do about Allan, and I had to decide before tonight.

It turned out, as I trudged up the stairs in my black stretch pants and forest-green T-shirt with a logo on it, that I didn't have much of a decision to make at all. I had a general idea as to where Allan was living: around the big pine forest in New Jersey where everyone spots the Jersey Devil. I remember thinking how ironic it was and teasing Allan, in my mind, about not letting the bed-devils bite.

I could easily hop a train to New Jersey. If I did it right, Susie Q wouldn't even know I'd left. Hop on the train at twelve thirty, be in New Jersey by two o'clock at the latest, quickly swing by a few of those towns, and be back by six. Sure, I'd be beat tomorrow, but it'll be worth it to see that Allan was alright.

* * *

My legs felt weighted down as I dragged myself into a seven-eleven at four that morning, the slightest bit of brightness on the eastern horizon. It turned out that I wasn't as close to the action as I thought I was, and that Allan would be a little harder to track than I originally gave the school credit for. This town was the last stop I could make tonight if I even dared to hope to get back before Susan woke up.

The man behind the counter was tall and black with deep-brown eyes that were openly judging me as I staggered in. What was I doing there at this time of night? I obviously wasn't from anywhere in town. Instead of pretending to browse and pick up something small to start the conversation, like a chocolate bar or a soda, I blatantly staggered the few feet to the counter and slammed Allan's picture, one thing I'd been able to save from the fire and the grubby hands of wanna-be male slayers, down onto the counter. "Have you seen this boy around here?"

The cashier glanced down before judging me again suspiciously. "Why?" His voice was deep, deeper than his eyes had let on. That is, if eyes correlate to voice in any manner. It's too late for this.

"He's my brother; I've been looking for him to surprise him on his birthday. Does he live in this town?"

The cashier picked up the picture, then, squinting at it before nodding, "I know him, down on Folly Oak. Big white house – can't miss it."

I nodded, a barely-audible thank you escaping my lips as I staggered out of the door. I'd become spoiled, apparently; I don't have to pull all-nighters when I have no friends to distract me. Now I'm up almost twenty-one hours and I'm stumbling like a sick drunken penguin. Maybe not a penguin. See? I'm too tired to even come up with a good metaphor, and I'm an English major!

By some strange stroke of luck, I remember seeing a road by the name of Folly Oak on the way into down and, in my sickly-drunken gait, found my way back to it. The big white house, which the cashier had so kindly described in so little detail, was almost six blocks down, and in those six blocks I woke up. The closer I got to Allan, the more worried I remembered to be. At four in the morning I expected it to be quiet, but as far as I could tell most of the lights in the house were on. Was that a precaution, did Allan have twenty-four hour surveillance, or did something go on?

Then again, if there was all-night protection, there should be all night sounds too. Even standing just in front of the house from the edge of the street I couldn't hear anything. My body tensed and, deciding that either someone was in there protecting or someone was in there trying to kill my brother, I slid up towards the house and quickly, quite loudly, kicked the door open.

The house was plain, that is it was except for the blood that immediately caught my attention. It had slowly started dripping down the staircase and was forming the smallest of puddles at the bottom. Fear forced my neck upwards before I could think to be scared, and I was greeted with the sight of a dead redheaded girl, one of her long arms falling down the stairs as her head bled onto the first stair which had formed the small river of blood that I'd seen.

"Allan," I called, mostly hesitant. No thinking about where I was stepping, I turned and walked around the first floor where I found one blonde slayer and a man with a snake on his arm. They had both been stabbed, the girl in a bedroom on the first floor and the man in the kitchen. "Allan?" All I could think to do, in spite of my training, was panic; I hadn't been worried about noise, so I know Allan has heard me. And that means he's not coming down because he can't.

Upstairs I found one more body and, although I'd thought for a second it had been Allan because of his dark hair, the face was all wrong and he looked too strong. I combed over the second floor again, awkwardly stepping over the redheaded girl.

"ALLAN!" The scream was desperate as I stood, dejected, next to the dead girl at the top of the stairs. Her eyes were closed and I was left completely unsure of where to look or what to do to get my brother back; he's been taken, I know he has. Someone doesn't just waltz into a house with two slayers, a watcher, and a wizard and let a regular human slip away down the street, possibly screaming bloody murder.

As if my frustrated scream had summoned them, the door which I didn't even remember closing was kicked open and, a few seconds later, police-people in black clothing and bullet-proof vests barged into the house, their arms locked and their guns pointing towards the floor. "Freeze!"

Of course, when you're a Slayer with a knife that may or may not be strikingly similar to the murder weapon, standing in blood next to a dead body at four thirty in the morning, the last thing you want to do is freeze. Actually, the last thing you want to do is throw your pocket knife at the police-people but you shouldn't even consider that as an option.

And, quite aware of what I should be doing, I instead stood there shocked. The idea that Allan had simply gotten lost blew my mind once it hit; some part of me expected it to be Allan running through that door, avoiding the blood for fear of it staining his shoes. He's probably just gone to a party – that was his style.

Careful of the blood, the policemen rushed the stairs, grabbing me and shoving me around. I had half a mind to fight them back, and I would've if the other half of my mind was even registering thoughts. It wasn't, though. And that was a big problem.


	5. 3: Wreck of the Day

No excuse I can offer will make up for my missing last week.

If it helps, I was getting my wisdom teeth out and have spent the time since madly trying to make up the work I missed while out with sickness and surgery.

Hope this chapter helps to satisfy everyone - you all have given me such lovely comments I feel endebted.

And I just came my philosophy class and am typing in the style of the teacher. Go figure.

**Fun fact:** There are actual reasons as to Sam and Dean's codenames in Carden's cell phone, both taken from season 4. Dean's codename, Helen, is taken from when he said his last name was Van Halen in 'In the Beginning'. Sam's is Linus, taken from the title 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester'. In Charlie Brown, Linus is the only person who honestly believes in the Great Pumpkin. Elmo, though, is in tribute to my roommate, who worked at Sesame Street and enjoys randomly breaking out in, "Elmo, will you drive my car?"

* * *

I sighed as I watched Detective Wiggums stroll around the room, smacking her lips as she read over the case file one more time. Maybe that's supposed to be intimidating, but it's not. I honestly couldn't give a rat's ass that I'm in this situation. At this point, I work for a place that thinks it's above mere political power. We've been given a mandate from God, or something. But they'll get me out of here.

"So you were standing at the top of the stairs when they found you?" Oh, this line of questioning again. Actually, I'm being almost completely honest with her. I'm just not telling her who did it. Why? Because if I tell her it was my crazy ex kidnapping my brother trying to finish the job he started halfway through September, but not to follow on this lead because he's not just a regular ex-boyfriend, but a **demon** ex-boyfriend, she might flip.

"Yes, yes I was." I could repeat her next point almost verbatim.

"So you stepped OVER the body to get to that spot?"

"Unless I climbed the wall and jumped the railing, I would have to." I love that honesty can have a sarcastic, angry spin to it and still be honesty. Sarcastic truth is so under-appreciated.

"But you didn't know she was there?"

I glared at the back of the detective's chocolate-brown hair, not sure exactly why she was keeping this up. "I knew she was there; I was searching the house for it's fifth occupant.'

"And how did you know that there was a fifth occupant?" Aha! She caught me! Not.

"Because he's my best friend's roommate at boarding school but he hasn't come back from Thanksgiving break yet so I said I'd check his house and see how he was doing."

"Really? Because the only person missing is a Trevor Richdale and he goes to the public high school."

I scoffed, "Well yeah, _now_ he does. I don't know who they thought was him in the beginning of the year."

"You think you're funny, don't you?"

"I think I'm going to get out of this and you can't stop me." Heh. Complete, undeniable honesty. Only 'know' would be a better term. Details, details.

There was a knock on the door, completely unnecessary seeing as how Susan Pendle, dressed in her most business-esque attire, barged in without waiting for a response. She stood, her hit jutted out as she pursed her lips at Dedective Wiggums, "Talking to my client without an attorney present?" For a second, the detective gaped at her, but Susan left no room for back talk. She hated back talk. "I'm the defendant's lawyer Quinn Yardley, and she won't be saying anything else until you give me some time alone with her to discuss this situation."

For a second Wiggums stood there, gaping like we'd be on the verge of a confession and she'll never get me back to that point; too bad she never got there in the first place. I could come up with a cheeky metaphor, but Susan's back and sucking the creative energy out of me just by pursing her made-up lips at the detective like a… fish.

See. All gone.

"You have ten minutes," the detective almost growled before stalking out of the room, her shoulder blades visibly jutting out of her back.

Susan let out a breath as she pulled up a chair across from me, her eyes narrowed in a way that was only slightly more intimidating than any one of detective Wiggums' various scare tactics. "What did you do, Carrie?"

I rolled my eyes, "I didn't kill them; I don't even have a knife on me." Lie: I had Brady. But the police didn't find him and the Council doesn't know about him. I was only being honest with the police; I'll say anything I need to to Susan.

"I mean why were you there, at the house? How did you even know where the house was?"

"I told you I had a bad feeling about Allan; you weren't going to do anything, so I did. It's called taking the initiative to make sure my one living relative Is still, you know, alive and safe."

"You disobeyed the rules; you obviously kept in contact with him," Susan's voice had turned cold. I physically flinched, not because I was scared of her; no, I was scared of what she could do to me for this. They could move Allan across the country. I would never see him or hear from him again. Even if he died they wouldn't tell me.

"Look, can you lecture me back at the house; Azazel knows where I am while I'm here, he probably tracked me from the house, so I'd rather get out and not keep putting these people in danger." Ha – I played the 'innocents' card. She can't keep me here while I'm a known target. It's, like, against the code or whatever.

"We have no proof Azazel did this," Susan hissed, as if by saying his name we were bringing him upon us. She straightened her posture, though, and her voice took on a primness that made me want to hurt her much more than usual. "And besides, you're not going back to the house. Ever."

For a second, I swore that I'd misheard her, or that she hadn't said anything at all and it was my imagination. There was even a moment when I considered that she might have been possessed by a demon. All of that changed, though, when I realized that there was a very serious look in her eyes. "What?!" I shouldn't be screeching; I openly hated my life at that damn house. "WHY?!" Yelling is even less reasonable.

"Because, Carrie, like I said; you broke the rules. We dropped you, and for the last time. You're too much of a liability to our operation. I came to say you're on your own. No posting your bail, no giving you an alibi." Susan stood then, brushing at the front of her navy blue jacket like the metal table had stained it, "I'd say it was a pleasure, but we both know you were a headache and a brat."

I still sat there, slack jawed and finding the entire situation incomprehensible; I knew something was wrong, tried to stop it, and somehow I'm losing everything all over again? "What about Allan?"

"Our connection to him was you; he'll take no priority over all the other victims of demon kidnappings."

That's translatable to, "He'll be put at the bottom of our 'to find' list and somehow keep getting bumped down until it's been so long all the leads are cold and we can pronounce him dead." How could they be so heartless?

"You can't do that," I protested, actually scared by one of Susan's threats for the first time in my life, "You can't. He's innocent; he can't defend himself. He doesn't even have a lot of common sense!"

Susan paused, obviously thinking about the most appropriate, bitchy response to my plea. "We have reasons to believe he wasn't so innocent."

And like that, Susan slammed the door behind her and was gone. I continued to gape for a few seconds, but with a strange life the door almost bounced back open, a Bill Pullman-like man leaning and taking in the sight of me with wide eyes. The Trickster.

The sigh that I exhaled was surprising. I didn't think I had that much lung capacity. Especially after so many months of not working out or even moving too much. "Heya, cowgirl," the Trickster brought me back into reality, a crooked smile on his face, "Need some help?"

This was the second time the Trickster had appeared when I was on the verge of a freak out and needed help; I'm starting to really like this guy.

I nodded quickly and, with a wave of his hand, the handcuffs that had been holding me to the metal interrogation table disappeared. Still smiling crookedly at me, I stood and let the Trickster take a few steps forward, wrapping an arm around me waist and teleporting us into my room back at the house.

"Hurry," he instructed as I stumbled around my room for a second, a little thrown by the teleportation. That was something straight out of 'Jumper', only it wasn't nearly as cool without Hayden Christensen. "We don't have that much time before they come for your stuff."

"Where did Azazel take Allan," I questioned, my visioning finally straightening out enough that I could stumble to my dresser and throw what I had into a duffel bag.

"I have no idea," the Trickster confessed, "But I have to get out of here; if they find me here they'll do more than kick me out of the order."

I nodded, wishing that he could stay. What with him being like an evil guardian angel, I really wanted him around to help me find my brother.

There was no doubt in my mind that I would leave this 'life' that the council had given me and find Allan. What else did I have to do? Find Allan and protect him at all costs; that was my life now. That and taking Azazel down. Maybe find his sword and stab him viciously. That sounds nice.

"Here," the Trickster added, obviously almost forgetting, "I grabbed what they confiscated." I turned just in time to have my purse thrown at me. By the time I caught it, the Trickster had already disappeared and there were footsteps stomping up the stairs. Wizards and such, no doubt. All on their way to destroy any evidence of little old me; clean the magical crime scene, as it were.

I could try and bully my way through them on the stairs, but I think I'll take my chances with the emergency fire exit.

* * *

I paced in my dirty motel room, the general hygiene of the place so disgusting not even cockroaches dared to frequent the place. But I hadn't expected to be leaving, and therefore only had a few hundred bucks in my account. And since I didn't know how long I'd be on my own looking for Allan and Azazel. Moreover, without any way to prove that I was a person by American standards, I needed a lot of documentation that I simply didn't have the time or resources to fake, so I'm guaranteed a shit job with little pay. And that's assuming I have enough time to be working.

I considered, momentarily, calling my Aunt Ellen and Jo; I wasn't real close with them, but I'm pretty sure I had their numbers in my cell phone. Even so, they weren't hard to find. Neither of them were on the run from the cops, if I remember correctly. They're probably in the yellow pages of wherever their living.

But those aren't the reasons I'm pacing; I have faith that, even if my situation has never been quite this dire before, I can pull through. No, what I'm worried about is how I'm going to find Allan. I know it was Azazel who took him, or at least someone who was working for Azazel, but I had no idea how to find him or what to do to get him back. I'd tried scrying, but apparently Azazel simply isn't on this planet. Well, it's that or he put up wards, in which case I'm screwed. Wards are a wizard thing, not a Slayer thing.

So how was I going to find him? I have no independent resources, no partner in crime. The Trickster had set me free a week ago and, so far, he'd made no attempt to help me out again. What I need is someone who knows demons, specifically Azazel, who would be willing to risk their lives to help me find my brother, and it would be good if they could help me out n my living situation. That might be asking too much, though.

Of course, exactly one name came to mind, and about that name I was extremely torn. Wasn't this the sort of reason as to why I kept his number in the first place? Then again, he's… well, he's Dean Winchester, and when it comes to him I'm admittedly a little biased. Would he actually help me, or am I just

_Fuck it,_ I thought, grabbing my phone and starting to scroll wildly through the contacts, _Even if he turns me down, I have to try. He's my only hope._ I repressed the urge to gag at the sad validity and cliché-ness of that statement.

Dean's voice was confused and obviously a little scared when he answered, "Hello?"

My own voice was weak with crying, "Dean?" Stunned silence. "Dean, I need your help."


	6. It finally happened AN

My lovely readers,

It finally happened. Somewhere between the commute from school to home every weekend, the wire connecting my hard drive to my computer (that is, if my brother is right in his diagnosis) came loose and I am soon to be without computer. Sadly, it also means that the only computer I have access too (the old yet not-quite-junky one at my house) has nothing of my stories on it that has not been published for everyone to see.

What does this mean for you? Well, it means that it is virtually impossible for me to be updating during the school week until my computer is fixed (hopefully in a week). It also means, though, that I'll be handwriting everything, including my stories, and that I'll be home on Friday freaking out about my e-mail and the things I have to type, once again including my stories. If all goes well (here's to hoping) that means everyone will be updated by Saturday morning. This, in turn, means that getting out another update by Sunday would be an accomplishment to brag about for ages (it would, for the record, be 16,000 words, the equivalent of ten english papers) but also unlikely due to my work and school schedule.

I understand that my updates have been slowly growing more sporadic, something I hoped to remedy by updating on time this week, but this borderline unexpected event (I thought it would be my charger to give out, as it is nearly snapped in half) is simply on of the punches I hope to roll with. Knowing me, by the end of the week I'll be twitching at not having updated, which is good news for you guys.

My deepest apologies to you - I can do nothing but beg for your understanding.


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